


Chad Lonford Is Coming

by Missy



Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Genre: Celebrities, Celebrity Crush, Female Friendship, Gen, Humor, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 03:56:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5114972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stacey, Claudia and Dawn try to celebrate Stacey's birthday by getting her an autograph from her crush - but when fate steps in Stacey's left...well, crushed, and Claudia must modify her gift to right the wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chad Lonford Is Coming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [escritoireazul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/escritoireazul/gifts).



Claudia has spent four hours trying to get his features just right. Maybe too hard; her hand’s begun cramping and her eyes ache, but she’s going to get this done and do it right. 

Then there’s a knock, and Chad Lonford’s painted face almost ends up with a long, red scratch lining it. But the brush is saved, and so is the birthday gift she’d been working so hard to finish for Stacey.

“What is it?” she yells.

“It’s a Dawn.” Claudia heaves a sigh of relief and runs to open the door.

“What’s up, Dawn?” she asks. “Does Mallory need backup with the Donaldson twins?”

“Oh no, it’s like way, way bigger than that…” Dawn squints over Claudia’s shoulder, taking in the portrait that. “Is that like…Chad Lonford?”

“It’s Stacey’s birthday present,” Claudia says, reaching under her bed to rummage up a package of Twinkies, which Dawn automatically rejects when it’s offered to her first. “She’s been so into him lately! I thought she’d really love to have his painting somewhere in her room.”

“Good idea,” Dawn grins. “I? Have an even better one.”

Claudia eyes Dawn warily. She almost sounds like Kristy “this is a great notion, don’t ask questions” Thomas at the moment. It’s kinda scary. “What idea?”

Dawn reaches into the front pocket of her stone-washed jeans and unfolds a mimeographed flier. In bold, black-and-white print, Claudia manages to translate the news into something understandable: CHAD LONFORD IS COMING. “Oh my God.”

 

**** 

 

“Oh my GOD!” Stacey practically glows as the three of them join the very, very long line snaking across the main concourse of the Stonybrook Mall. “I don’t believe I’m going to meet Chad!” She fluffs her hair out another couple of inches and straightens her bright-red oversized turtleneck. “How do I look?”

Dawn stops sipping on the apple-cranberry-orange juice she’d picked up on her way to the mall. “Fab,” she says, grinning. “Those rainbow tights look AMAZING on you.” She’s wearing a red tiered skirt with ruffles, blue tights, bright red ballet shoes and a blue tank top along with orange-lighting dotted high tops, her hair up in a bun tied with blue ribbons.

Claudia has chosen a different top, a purple one with spangles and red-and-black striped tights with slouchy purple socks, sneakers with purple stars on them, and a side-ponytail held back by purple and yellow scrunchies. Not to mention her dangly earrings with red, green, black, purple and orange geometric shapes. “I don’t get why it matters. I mean, Chad’s just a normal guy.” She shuffles along with the line as it moves a step forward.

“Come on Claudia, take that back! It’s not just some guy, he’s a CUTE guy.” Stacey tries to adjust her ice cream cone charm necklace nervously. “Do you think he’ll like me?”

“Stace,” Dawn says. “You need to relax. Where’s your New York chill?”

“I left it back in New York,” she sighs. 

 

*** 

Six pretty boring hours later, the girls finally reach the front of the line. As Claudia lays eyes on Chad she remembers just why she’s not interested in his show, Swan’s Coast. He’s just so…ugh. He reminds her of a Hollywoodified Alan Grey – vaguely maybe cute (MAYBE okay) in a sporty way, but then stretched and powdered and highlighted so often that he looks like a shadow of what might’ve been somebody she’d like-like. 

But the moment has arrived, at long, long last, and Stacey looks ready to fly to the moon all by herself. “I don’t believe it,” Stacey whispers. “I’m really going to meet Chad…”

And just as they met the end of the velvet rope cordon, a very tall woman with a large cloud of grey hair steps between them and the long table Chad had occupied all morning. “I’m sorry,” she says, her accent pure Brooklyn honk. “Chad won’t be signing anything else.”

“What?! No!” Stacey cries, her voice mournful enough to make Claudia drape an arm around her. 

“You don’t understand,” Claudia says. “This is important! It’s my best friend’s birthday and we spent all day in line…”

“Too bad for you,” the woman says officiously. “Shoulda got here earlier.” 

“That’s not fair!” Dawn yells, but then two very tall, very angry-looking men start shoving the line backward. They joined the throng of crying teenagers trying to get out of the way of Chad’s entourage as they leave the mall – and the whole group of them totally empty-handed.

*** 

Stacey is pretty inconsolable as they make their way back to her house. Dawn keeps apologizing over and over again for stopping for that smoothie, and Claudia feels guilty over…cursing the moment? Yep, cursing the moment. She’s a jinx. 

Later that night she takes out that painting of Chad she’d meant to give Stacey. Yeah, giving Stace a picture like this couldn’t be a good idea. She steels herself for a moment before carefully starting to shift the canvas. 

*** 

Stacey’s birthday party happens a whole week after her actual birthday thanks to what Mrs. McGill tactfully continues to call “The Chad Incident.” There’s sugar-free cake and candy, and dancing. Half the school crowds the McGill’s dining room, and Stacey’s presents make a tiny mountain on the side board.

When she gets to Claudia’s, she grins. “Oh my gosh, it’s just what I wanted!”

Claudia feels every muscle in her body relax at the declaration, her arm going around her best friend. “I’m so glad you like it,” she says.

“Love it,” Stacey says, breaking the hug to admire it more. “I don’t have any pictures of us together, just the two of us – and now I have a painting! And it looks just like us.” She lowers the portrait and then adds, “I do look a little bit like Chad Lonford, but it’s totally the light.”

Claudia grins. “Totally,” she says, and takes another huge bite of birthday cake.

**Author's Note:**

> I decided not to use Kip Landish or Tyler in this one as the teen idol of the week. Since Stacey crushes on a variety of boys in the books I figured making up an original character might not be too much of a stretch! Hope you had fun reading this little treat!


End file.
